


after the tone

by angelic_angel



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Office, Awkward Flirting, Developing Relationship, Humor, Kissing, M/M, Minor Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Misunderstandings, Pining, Strangers to Lovers, Swearing, first impressions gone wrong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:54:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29614590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelic_angel/pseuds/angelic_angel
Summary: mark works in customer complaints.yuta thinks he's phoning his next date.it goes about as well as you can imagine.
Relationships: Mark Lee/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 24
Kudos: 97





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> i had this idea, immediately thought of yumark, and now we're here. 
> 
> (p.s. there is some vague tech talk in this - i made it up and it probably makes no sense, so please forgive me lol)

It’s been a long day - longer than most, in Mark’s humble opinion - and he wants nothing more than to clock out, go home, and veg in front of the TV for several hours before falling asleep halfway through last night’s leftovers. Unfortunately, capitalism never sleeps (nor does his landlord, it seems) and Mark is nought but a mere servant to the corporate powers that be.

“Dude, you’re working overtime? Again?” Jaehyun asks, arms resting on Mark’s cubicle as he peers down at the mess of documents carpeting the desk, his face scrunching into a grimace. “The pay isn’t even that good.”

Mark shrugs. “It’s better than nothing.”

That is only partially true because, really, Mark would rather do nothing and not get paid than answer phones all evening, only to get a measly bonus just big enough to get him an extra packet of shrimp chips and not much else. Whatever. He likes shrimp chips.

“I mean, you do you,” Jaehyun sighs, stepping back towards his own cubicle as he shrugs on his coat. The fluorescent light above them flickers warningly, threatening to go out and plunge the entire office into darkness. “I know what I’d rather be doing with my Friday night.”

“No need to rub it in,” Mark grumbles, clicking distractedly through the most recent emails in his inbox. “Not all of us have hunky, sex god boyfriends waiting for us at home.”

Jaehyun laughs, loud and hearty. “I’m gonna tell Johnny you said that.”

Cheeks flushing sheepishly, Mark curses his lack of brain-to-mouth filter.

“It was just an observation.”

“Sure,” Jaehyun snorts, hooking his bag over his shoulder with a wry smirk.

Saved by the bell, Mark’s phone rings, the shrill sound signalling an incoming call from a potentially furious customer.

“That’s my cue to leave. I’ll make sure to tell my hunky, sex god boyfriend you said hi.”

With that, Jaehyun switches off his computer and sends a wave over his shoulder, leaving Mark alone and in the clutches of his first complaint of the night.

“Hi, this is Mark from Neo Culture Technology’s customer complaints department. How are you today?”

His hunch was right. The old lady on the other end of the phone barely allows Mark to finish his greeting before she’s going off on a tangent about her broken touch screen.

At times like these, Mark wonders what possessed him to apply for a job at a tech company, of all places. He barely knows how to use his own phone most of the time, so how he even got this position in the first place, he has no idea. Technically, he works in customer complaints, but most of the time Mark feels like he’s working an IT job, which is completely out of his depth and a matter in which he bears little to no expertise. 

Overall, Mark thinks he’s entirely underqualified for his job and would much rather be doing something related to his university degree, but a year and a half of unemployment post-graduation with little to no prospects on the horizon had shown Mark that writing was not as lucrative a career as it once was. He still spends most weekends typing away on his clunky, five-year-old laptop, words spilling onto the screen in sudden bursts of inspiration, but he’s had to put a writing career on the back burner for the time being whilst he spends his weeks answering calls from angry, tech-illiterate pensioners with nothing better to do than shout down the phone at him with unbridled rage.

By eight, Mark has dealt with approximately twelve customers, seven of which screamed in his ear for several minutes before hanging up. Another four of them found out that the problems with their products were down to their own incapability rather than any fault of the company’s, and only one final customer actually had a valid complaint.

The time in between calls is spent scrolling idly through social media, replying to all of Donghyuck’s texts begging Mark to grab toffee popcorn on his way home with a resolute “No”, and scalding himself with boiling water during his attempt to cook a cup of ramen.

Every second closer to nine, Mark grows restless, eager to log out of his computer and head straight home, even if that would result in a string of complaints from his roommate about the lack of popcorn in Mark’s possession.

Just as he thinks his job for the night is done, the phone rings. With a deep, bone-rattling sigh, Mark drops his chopsticks and lifts the receiver.

“Hi, this is Mark from Neo Culture Technology’s customer complaints department. How are you today?”

For a split second it’s silent, static crackling through the phone line as Mark waits for the caller to reply. Then, there’s a sharp laugh, startling Mark and causing him to jump in his seat with a loud creak.

“Aw, man. Why does this keep happening?”

Mark frowns, confused. Has this guy called before? Has he had that many problems with his purchases? Repeat callers aren’t exactly rare, but they’re not particularly common either, and with so many people working in Mark’s department, it’s highly unlikely that anyone would get the same employee more than once.

“Is there anything I can help you with, sir?” Mark asks, pulling up the company issued script for when calls go awry. He doesn’t usually need it, but he also doesn’t usually get calls from people that leave him confused from the beginning. Mark almost always has a fighting chance of tackling whatever problem faces him on the other end of the phone, and then gradually, the bewilderment sets in. Not once has he ever felt so caught off guard from the start.

“Unless you’re called Mina and wore a red dress last weekend, then probably not,” the guy sighs, followed by another laugh.

Mark rubs his temple, trying to remember if he has a co-worker named Mina, but his mind comes up blank.

“I already told you my name,” Mark says, blinking at the useless script with an air of contempt. What’s the point in giving a script to employees if the customers won’t stick to it?

“Ah, sorry,” the guy apologises, although Mark can’t say he sounds particularly sorry. “Mark, was it?”

“Yes, that’s me. Is there a reason you’re calling?”

“Well, there _was_ ,” the man explains, “but apparently I’ve been had. Bamboozled. Hoodwinked.”

“Hoodwinked?” Mark echoes. Who uses that kind of language nowadays?

“Hm,” the man hums affirmatively. “It’s becoming a trend.”

“Accidentally calling customer complaints more than once?”

“Not exactly. Last week it was a Christian counselling hotline, the week before that was a phone sex operator, and now I’m here.”

It’s then that Mark realises just what’s going on. This “Mina” isn’t one of his co-workers - she’s just a girl who gave this guy a fake number. Man, what a creep.

“Three times? Man, I think you just need to take the hint,” Mark advises, hoping he can save any future girls from the same fate as Mina. Having to give out a fake number just to get some weirdo off your back isn’t fun, Mark can attest to that. Why are men so horrendously profane?

Surprisingly, though, the guy takes Mark’s suggestion in stride.

“Maybe you’re right, Mark,” the guy sighs, defeated. “I obviously don’t have the game I think I do, so maybe I should just give up.”

In all honesty, Mark would feel bad for the guy if not for the fact this isn’t his first offence.

“You seem cool,” the caller suddenly adds, and Mark pauses, taken aback.

It’s safe to say that this is the single most confusing call of his life, including the one from the elderly man who was not only hard of hearing, but also refused to actually explain his problem to Mark, claiming that he “didn’t want to give out that kind of information to just anyone”. In the end, the old man had hung up and Mark was given a stern talking to by his boss about how “the customer is always right, even when they’re lying”. If Mark didn’t need the money so desperately, he would’ve quit then and there.

Now he wishes he had, because _what the fuck?_ Why is this guy still talking even though Mark has already established that he is not the intended target of this call?

“Cool? We’ve been talking for two minutes and all I’ve done is inform you that I’m not the girl you’re looking for and given you some extremely basic advice.”

“Exactly. That’s pretty cool if you ask me.”

Mark wonders if it’s too late to just hang up. He’s the only person in the office, and considering this is a wrong number call, surely he won’t get penalised for ending it before the caller does. Right?

Despite the fleeting thought, Mark does exactly what any good customer service worker would do, deciding that a happy customer is better than an angry one, no matter if the phone call was an accident or not. If the customer’s happier, then they’re less likely to spend an extra five minutes shouting about how terrible Mark is at his job.

Besides, the longer Mark stays, the more he gets paid.

“I think we have two very different definitions of the word cool,” Mark snorts, only vaguely aware of his professional persona slipping. His eyes flicker to the screen of his computer, gazing at the little timestamp longingly.

“Well, what’s yours then?” the guy asks, something skirting the edge of his tone that Mark can’t quite put his finger on.

“Definitely not a guy whose attempts at flirting result in fake numbers, that’s for sure,” Mark mutters, wincing immediately in regret because he really shouldn’t have said that. 

What if this guy decides to phone back after tonight and complain about Mark’s terrible customer service skills to his boss? And what if he gets fired? He’ll have no money, and without money he won’t be able to pay rent, and if he can’t pay rent then Donghyuck will have to pay it himself which he definitely can’t afford, and if neither of them can pay rent, then they’ll be homeless.

Instead, the guy just laughs again, like he finds Mark genuinely amusing.

“I can’t even pretend to be offended,” he says through a giggle. “That was funny.”

That’s when it hits Mark, like a slap in the face or a kick to the kneecaps. The lilt of the guy’s voice, the way Mark can practically hear the smile in his words, the laughter.

“Are you flirting with me?” Mark splutters incredulously, any traces of his customer service voice completely washed away by shock. He feels a flush work its way onto his cheeks, hot and pink. This guy is probably just some asshole trying to get a rise out of Mark because it’s a Friday night and he’s bored, but at the same time, Mark is so incredibly lonely he can’t find it in himself to feel fully offended by the prospect.

“Might as well,” the guy replies, all calm and nonchalant - the complete opposite of Mark. “I’ve got nothing better to do with my time.”

Mark doesn’t know if he’s supposed to feel disrespected by that comment. The thought of being a last resort does hurt a little, even in relation to a stranger he can’t see.

“Good for you. I, on the other hand, actually have a job,” Mark says, attempting to draw the conversation to a close. With every second that ticks by, Mark’s eyes grow heavier and his stomach begins to stir with hunger despite the cup ramen. “You know, taking calls from actual customers with actual complaints.

“But I am complaining,” the guy argues, a petulant whine threatening to torment Mark’s ears.

What is this guy’s deal? He finds out he was given a fake number, and instead of seeming even remotely upset about it, he starts flirting? Mark’s head hurts, and he really, really, _really_ wants to go home. At this point, he believes a nap could fix all of his problems - this current one included.

For all this stranger knows, Mark could be a middle-aged, bald headed man with three kids from his first wife and a fetish for toenail clippings. Then again, for all _Mark_ knows, this guy could be an old creep who spends his weekends preying on vulnerable young men. Better me than someone else, he thinks. Mark has had his fair share of odd suitors, both on dating apps and in real life, and thinks he’s gotten the rejection part down to a slightly messy artform.

“Yes, but your problems have less to do with the company I work for, and more to do with your creepy attempts at flirting,” Mark counters, picturing the soft sheets of his bed with stark clarity. “No wonder those girls gave you fake numbers.”

Make that considerably messy.

“How do you know they were all girls?”

The stranger’s voice has gone from light and teasing to outright seductive, and Mark freezes.

Is this guy saying what Mark thinks he’s saying? And if so, is he also implying he knows about Mark’s preferences too? Mark thinks he should probably be utterly terrified by this whole thing, but he’s horrified to find that he’s only vaguely weirded out.

Mark clears his throat before replying, face burning. “You’re just digging yourself a deeper hole by implying you go around terrorising every person you meet.”

“Are you sure I haven’t accidentally called a relationship advice hotline?” the guy jokes, returning to casual flirtations.

“Even if you haven’t, I think you should take this all as a sign.” 

The time on Mark’s computer changes from nine fifty-seven to nine fifty-eight, and he feels his skin itch with anticipation. Two minutes, and he can get the fuck out of here, customer be damned. 

“A sign?” the guy parrots curiously. He’s either incredibly oblivious or incredibly stupid. Mark would be willing to bet in favour of the latter.

“Yeah, a sign to stop asking for phone numbers and just accept that you’re terrible at flirting,” he responds, clicking out of the open tabs in his web browser until he’s left with the generic landscape screensaver, endless rolling fields under a stark, azure sky. What Mark wouldn’t give to run away to the countryside for a weekend. 

The caller doesn’t give Mark much of a chance to daydream about unrealistic getaways, smashing through his wistfulness with a force comparable to a wrecking ball.

“You mean this isn’t working?” he teases with an audible smirk.

Suitably flustered, Mark doesn’t know what else to say, so he hangs up.

📞

After an uneventful weekend, Mark has almost forgotten about the strange phone call from Friday night, having distracted himself with several hours of movies on Saturday afternoon, drinks with Donghyuck on Saturday night, and then a day-long hangover on Sunday.

Now, it’s Monday and Mark is back at work. The moment he drops into his seat and catches sight of the phone, he’s immediately reminded of the last voice to speak through it. 

“Morning,” Jaehyun greets cheerfully with a dimpled grin, his head popping over the cubicle. It startles Mark so badly he almost falls out of his seat. “How was your weekend?”

“Fine,” Mark grumbles, unzipping his coat with far more force than necessary. He glares at the phone like it just personally offended him. It might as well have.

“That good, huh?” Jaehyun chuckles, reaching over and patting Mark on the head. “Rough shift on Friday?”

Mark moves his glare from the phone to Jaehyun’s face. “Don’t get me started.”

“Jesus, don’t tell me someone tried to curse you again,” Jaehyun says, shuddering at the memory.

One week into his job, Mark was barely used to having abuse hurled at him from both the customers and his boss. There was absolutely no way he could have prepared himself for a woman threatening to curse his bloodline when he told her he couldn’t offer her a refund because, as it turns out, phones tend to shatter when they’re thrown at solid objects. Brick walls, for example.

It’s a distant memory, and one that Mark would rather forget, but something about Friday’s phone call riles him up worse than any curse could.

“Not this time,” Mark shakes his head. His computer makes an unhealthy beeping sound when he attempts to log in, so he tries again.

“What was it then? You look angry this morning.” Jaehyun pauses, giving Mark a scrutinising onceover. “More so than usual.”

With a defeated sigh, Mark turns away from his computer screen to face Jaehyun.

“I got a call just before my shift ended, a wrong number or something,” Mark explains. Jaehyun nods understandingly, because it’s not an unusual occurrence. “Anyway, the guy doesn’t hang up straight away, and then he starts complaining about girls giving him fake numbers, and _then_ \- to top it all off - the dude starts flirting with me.”

Silence. Jaehyun stares down at Mark, unblinking.

And then: laughter. Blatant, boisterous laughter.

“Oh my god,” Jaehyun gasps. “This is brilliant.”

“Hey, don’t laugh at me!” Mark whines, scoping out the office to make sure their boss isn't anywhere nearby. He isn't, but plenty of Mark’s other co-workers are looking in his direction, probably wanting in on the joke that has Jaehyun on the verge of tears.

Mark expected this kind of reaction from Donghyuck (who Mark has yet to inform of Friday’s events for this very reason), but not Jaehyun. Jaehyun is nice and supportive, kind of like a big brother. From the moment Mark set foot in the company, Jaehyun has been at his side, giving help when it’s needed and advice when it probably isn’t.

A disgruntled pout settles on Mark’s face. Jaehyun is laughing at him. Not with him. _At_ him.

“I’m sorry. It’s just-” Jaehyun splutters upon noticing Mark’s frown, “It’s just really funny that you’re mad someone _flirted_ with you.”

If Mark wasn’t so uptight about the whole thing, then maybe he’d be laughing too. But he is uptight. Worryingly so, according to Donghyuck.

“I’m not mad about the flirting,” Mark huffs, turning back to his computer. It still hasn’t logged him in, an angry red cross flashing beside his username. “I’m mad because it felt like the guy was making fun of me.”

Jaehyun’s eyes soften into something warmer, less amused.

“That was a shitty thing for him to do,” he observes, patting a gloomy Mark comfortingly on the shoulder. “If he phones again - which I doubt he will - but if he does, let me know and I’ll get Johnny to track him down and beat him up.”

That draws a quiet laugh out of Mark. “No, you won’t,” he tuts.

“No, I won’t,” Jaehyun agrees, his smile returning. “Johnny’s the only person I know that genuinely wouldn't hurt a fly. I would know. I’ve witnessed it myself.”

A hushed whisper sounds from behind Mark. He and Jaehyun swivel their heads around only to find one of their co-workers gesturing for them to be quiet. One second later, their boss walks through the door, glowering as per usual, forcing the wrinkles on his face to deepen like lines on a map.

“What’re you lot doing?” he growls, his gaze prowling the office in search of someone to pick on. Mark ducks his head and pretends to read through his emails. In reality, he’s still on the lock screen and the computer seems to be refusing to let him in.

The entire office is silent. Phones stop ringing, fingers stop typing, everyone stops breathing.

“That’s what I thought.”

With a final sniff of disapproval, their boss disappears into his own office, and the entire department lets out a collective sigh of relief, including Mark. He can hear Jaehyun’s from the other side of the cubicle.

The general chatter of the office resumes as everyone begins answering phones and exchanging documents, but Mark’s computer still won’t let him in. He lets out a quiet groan, dropping his head onto his desk with a resounding thud.

“What’s wrong?” Jaehyun’s muffled voice asks. He’s still in his own cubicle, but Mark’s sound of defeat must've been loud enough for him to hear.

“Computer won’t let me in,” Mark grumbles, lifting his head to reveal tired eyes.

There’s a metallic squeak as Jaehyun leans back in his chair, head peeking around the cubicle wall.

“Call IT,” he suggests. “I can’t imagine they’ll be too busy just now.”

“I guess,” Mark shrugs, warily eyeing his phone before reaching out and dialling in the number for the IT department. It rings once. Twice. Three times. It continues to ring until all Mark can hear is the dial tone buzzing dully in his ear.

“It rang out,” he complains. Jaehyun’s chair squeaks again. This time, he actually gets out of it, coming to stand behind Mark to get a good look at his screen.

“Shit, it looks like you might be disconnected from the network.”

Mark nods as if he knows what Jaehyun’s talking about. He doesn’t.

“What should I do?” he asks, the red cross beside his name boring into his eyes like a laser.

“It’s probably a good idea to go and give IT a visit. Despite being our resident experts in tech, they’re not very good with answering their phones.”

Another groan crawls its way out of Mark’s throat, displeased and exhausted.

“Alright, I’ll go,” he sighs, pushing himself out of his chair. “But if you never see me again, just know I died on the journey down there.”

📞

Granted, Mark can be a little dramatic at times, but the journey from customer complaints to IT is nothing short of an odyssey.

By the time Mark is standing in front of the door to the IT offices, a thin sheen of sweat clings to his skin and his pulse throbs anxiously, slamming against his veins like a drum. He’s never been here before in his two years of working for NCT, but Mark has heard enough stories to paint a fairly vivid picture.

It seems a universal right of passage; that every company’s IT department should be strange and full of mysteries, whether that be the people who work there, or the jobs they do. Mark stares at the door, like he’s going to find another world behind it. 

What’s the etiquette for visiting another department? Should he knock, or can he just walk in? He’s fairly certain that the people behind the door are way above him in terms of company hierarchy and seniority, but does that mean he needs to call them sir or ma’am?

Mark can feel himself beginning to panic, so he does the only thing he can think of - he knocks the door twice, and then opens it before waiting for an answer. Not too formal, but not so informal as to be impolite.

The office is empty when Mark walks in. No wonder no one answered the phone. It’s much smaller than the customer complaints office with its sprawling labyrinth of cubicles, but it’s far nicer. There aren’t any dividers to be seen, just a few desks spread out across the office, leaving the place looking spacious and airy, unlike the perpetual cluster of Mark’s workplace. He spies a fancy-looking coffee machine sitting on a little trolley in the furthest corner, along with a colourful selection of coffee pods. Mark yearns silently, grimacing as he thinks about the grainy instant coffee awaiting him in the staff kitchen upstairs.

“Can I help you?” a voice asks from behind him.

Startled, Mark flinches. He slowly spins around until he’s face to face with who he presumes to be one of the IT guys. Presumes being the key word, because this guy is not who Mark expected.

Mark’s first thought is: fuck, I have no idea how to speak to strangers (doing this face to face rather than over the phone is so much harder. There’s no real-life way to just hang up on someone). The second is: _whoa_.

“Um, yeah,” Mark nods, wide eyed and a little nervous. A little more than nervous. This guy is hot. Like, really hot. Suddenly feeling very conscious of his own appearance, Mark swipes a hand across his forehead, feigning nonchalance. It comes away sticky with sweat.

The guy raises an eyebrow, a silent urge for Mark to continue.

“Uh, my computer won’t let me log in. I’ve tried, like, five times and it still isn’t working.”

“I see,” the guy hums, nodding slightly. He shuts the office door behind him and leads Mark to the desk nearest the coffee machine, placing down a pile of documents before dropping into the seat.

Mark hovers awkwardly beside the desk, not sure what to do or say. He watches as the guy clacks away at his keyboard, clicking his mouse a few times. It gives Mark the opportunity to study his face, and _oh boy_ is it a nice one. A sloping nose, big eyes, curved lips. In a word; gorgeous. Actually, if Mark had to describe his type this guy would be a pretty great example, with his pretty rose coloured hair and sleek shirt and tie.

“Which department?”

Mildly baffled, Mark gives the guy a blank look. “Huh?”

“Which department are you from?” he explains, although not unkindly. “I can’t find out what’s wrong with your computer if you don’t tell me where it is.”

“Oh, uh, customer complaints,” Mark stutters, feeling only moderately flustered.

The keyboard clicks loudly under the guy’s fingertips, typing in a combination of letters and numbers that mean absolutely nothing to Mark. His hands are pretty too, slender fingers with perfectly manicured nails, and a silver ring wrapped around the skin of the middle finger on his right hand.

“Name?”

Another question Mark isn’t prepared for.

“Huh?” he blanches, an echo of his previous answer.

This time, the guy lets out a muted sigh, and Mark winces guiltily. Maybe he should start paying attention to the things hot people have to say instead of just staring at them, glassy eyed and blushing.

“Your name,” the guy urges, staring up at Mark with a raised brow. “I can’t figure out the problem with your account if I don’t know it.”

Mercifully, Mark can confidently answer that question.

“Mark Lee,” he manages to say without stuttering or pronouncing his own name wrong. It’s happened before.

The guy’s eyes seem to widen a fraction, but the surprise is gone before Mark is even really sure he saw it in the first place. He types something, clicks his mouse a few times, and then his big eyes are staring up at Mark again.

“Your PC’s disconnected from the network.”

Ah, so Jaehyun was right, and Mark feels just as clueless as he did minutes before.

“Is that… bad?” he asks warily.

“No, it happens fairly often, usually when people forget to log out before shutting down their machine.”

The guy continues to stare at Mark, his gaze oddly scrutinising. It runs a shiver up Mark’s spine, but he ignores it in favour of racking his brains for any memory of doing something that could’ve mucked up his account.

It doesn’t take him long to remember: In his panic to leave work on Friday night, still flustered and embarrassed after the stranger’s phone call, Mark had shut everything off from his little lamp, to his plug sockets, to his _computer_.

“Don’t worry,” the guy assures him upon noticing Mark’s slightly panicked look. “Give me five minutes and I’ll get you up and running again.”

“Five minutes?”

“Hm,” he nods. “If you leave now, your PC will be working just fine by the time you get back.”

Something about the notion of leaving has Mark feeling deflated. He doesn’t let show, though, choosing to shoot the pretty IT guy a grateful smile.

“Cool. Thanks a lot…” Mark trails off, realising he doesn't even know this guy’s name.

“Yuta.”

 _Fuck_. Even his name is pretty.

“Okay, thanks Yuta.”

Mark gives Yuta his biggest, prettiest smile, and then he all but runs out of that office, a blush remaining high on his cheeks all the way back to customer complaints.

Jaehyun eyes him strangely when Mark returns, breathless and sweating again.

“You survived?”

The image of big eyes and rose-coloured hair flashes in Mark’s mind.

“Barely,” he gasps, dropping into his seat. Before he can even ask, Jaehyun hands Mark a bottle of water, cool and crisp as it trickles down his throat.

While Mark guzzles down the water, Jaehyun gestures to his computer.

“Did they figure out what’s wrong?”

“Just like you said,” Mark replies, pulling the bottle away from his mouth with a loud pop. “Network problem. It should be fixed by now.”

Jaehyun whistles lowly. “Impressive. I’ve always had faith in our IT team’s abilities. It’s nice to see I’ve been proved right.”

Mark pauses as he brings the bottle to his mouth.

“Weren’t you just complaining about how they never answer their phones?”

“So what?” Jaehyun shrugs, twirling the pen in his hand with practiced finesse. “I do that too.”

“That’s literally your job.”

“And sometimes, dear Markie, I simply do not want to do it.”

Slumping like a melting marshmallow, Mark dissolves into his seat. This is going to be a long day.

📞

Mark puts off working overtime for as long as he can, until Friday morning, his boss corners him in the staff kitchen and all but orders him to stay on after five. Being the obedient employee that he is, Mark agrees immediately, but he quickly regrets it the moment Jaehyun waves goodbye for the second week in a row.

Fortunately, it’s a much quieter night than last Friday. That either means NCT’s products are improving, or people are running out things to complain about. Either way, there’s less work for Mark to do, leaving him with a lot of spare time on his hands. He cooks up some ramen (far more successfully than last week’s), plays a round of office basketball with a wastepaper bin and some crumpled-up reports (which are probably important but Mark temporarily decides he can no longer read) and stares at his computer screen until his eyes go all blurry and unfocused.

Briefly, he ponders if Yuta might still be in the building. It’s a thought that comes seemingly out of nowhere, sneaking up on Mark until he’s just the right kind of vulnerable, and pounces. With their departments being so far away from one another, Mark hasn’t seen Yuta since the mishap with his computer on Monday, and he doubts they’ll see each other any time soon.

There was one, delirious moment on Wednesday afternoon in between his fifth and sixth cups of coffee that Mark considered doing something to sabotage the wellbeing of his PC, just on the off chance that Yuta would be the one to fix it. It was a thought that didn’t last long, immediately overtaken by a sobering measure of embarrassment.

Mark knows he can’t handle hot people. They make his face flush and his palms sweat and his heart thud in his chest. It had taken several weeks for Mark to get over Jaehyun’s handsome face appearing in front of him every two minutes, offering to take Mark for lunch or show him how the office printer worked. It had then taken at least a month after their first meeting for Mark to figure out how to talk to Johnny without stumbling over his words, phrases tripping clumsily as they fell across his tongue.

Yuta is hot. That’s a fact. A fact Mark can’t do anything about. He doesn’t really know how to flirt, but he also doesn’t really know how to take being flirted with either. It’s a curse, far realer than that one the woman tried to place on him as she screamed down the phone; a curse that has left him truly single for most of his life.

The phone rings again while Mark continues to wallow in his self-made misery. Forgetting where he is for a moment, he picks it up and all but mumbles into the receiver.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” It’s the guy from last Friday. The cadence of his voice is so familiar as it travels into Mark’s ear, and he’s tempted to hang up, but for some reason he can’t bring himself to do it.

“Oh,” he replies flatly. “It’s you.”

The stranger lets out a breath, the sound crackling like logs on a fire.

“What, did someone else give you a fake number?” Mark asks tiredly. It’s getting to that point in the night where he wants nothing more than to close his eyes and let sleep take him.

“Not this time,” is the answer he gets. Something about the guy’s voice sounds strange this time around, a little off.

“So, are you just phoning to make fun of me again, or-”

“No! No, not at all.” The stranger jumps in before Mark can finish his question. “I would never mean to do that. To make fun of you.”

Is this an apology? It’s a pretty shitty one from where Mark’s standing.

“Ah, but you realised that what you did was wrong and now you’re crawling back to apologise,” Mark hums knowingly. He doesn't have to see this guy’s face to know he’s right. The answering silence is all he needs to confirm his suspicions.

Mark’s computer bleeps, signalling the delivery of an incoming email. He scans the subject line, only for his heart to drop upon realising it’s a request from his boss, asking - no - telling Mark to work overtime the following Friday as well.

“By the way,” Mark says, ever so slowly as a realisation dawns upon him. “How did you know I would be working tonight?”

There’s a brief, staticky silence, and then the stranger’s talking again.

“I didn’t. I’ve phoned every night this week.”

The confession surprises Mark, stopping his breathing short.

“What?” he croaks.

“Yeah, I’ve tried calling around this time every day, but it was always the same guy that answered and never you,” the stranger explains, his distant, disembodied voice turning smooth as honey even through the phone line.

“That reminds me,” he adds, cutting off Mark’s pre-sentence breath. “If you have the chance, you should probably remind Doyoung to take that stick out of his ass. After the third night he started threatening to report me to the police.”

The laugh leaves Mark in a rush, unexpected and uncontrollable.

“I don’t blame him,” Mark says, repressing another flurry of giggles as the image of Doyoung muttering murderously down the phone forms in his head. “I almost did the same.”

“I don’t blame you,” the guy says, the guilt in his voice having disappeared, replaced by the lighter, cheerful tone of last week. It isn’t the same as the sleazy, flirtatious approach he had taken before, but Mark finds that he likes his voice better without it.

“Did you have an actual complaint this time?” Mark asks, suddenly aware that he’s acted rather presumptuously. Maybe this guy wants to complain and apologise; a two birds with one stone kind of deal.

“Oh, no, not this week,” the stranger replies.

“Not this week, but maybe next Friday instead?” Mark jests, but the guy doesn’t laugh.

Mark blanches, realising he just told this stranger when he would next be working overtime.

“Next Friday?” the guy asks. Mark gulps dryly, speechless.

Taking Mark’s silence in stride, the smile in the stranger’s voice never wavers.

“Okay, well maybe I’ll have come up with a real complaint by then,” he laughs, a strangely pleasant sound. “Goodnight, Mark Lee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!
> 
> i hope you enjoyed reading this! the next part will be up soon, but in the meantime please let me know what you thought of this one <3
> 
> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/angel1c_angel) :)


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got carried away with writing this and decided that it would be best to add another chapter rather than condense the rest of the story into this one - sorry about that, but i'll update with the last chapter soon! :)

The next week seems to pass by in a blur of complaints ranging from relatively minor to so serious the boss needs to get involved (thankfully, one of Jaehyun’s customers and not Mark’s). Before he knows it, it’s Friday again, and Mark finds himself in the exact same position he was in this time last week. And the week before that. At this point, all future Fridays are shaping up to be much of the same mundane nonsense. 

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Jaehyun asks, his brow curling into a concerned frown. “I mean, none of us are quite the Doyoung we think we are.”

“Even Doyoung isn’t the Doyoung he thinks he is. I caught him napping in the bathroom during lunch on Tuesday,” Mark counters, squinting at an e-invitation for Kun’s retirement party. Can one retire at the age of thirty-five? If so, Mark would like in on that. 

“That’s besides the point,” Jaehyun waves dismissively. “What I mean is - are you sure you’re not overworking yourself? I know one night of overtime per week might not seem like a lot, but it adds up. I don’t want to find you passed out in your cubicle one day, face down in a cup of instant ramen.”

Mark’s face twists into a grimace as he pulls his gaze from the computer screen. Jaehyun’s brow is furrowed with the beginnings of a worried frown, making him look sort of like Mark’s mother whenever she comes to visit his apartment. That perhaps has more to do with Donghyuck’s inability to wash his dishes than anything else, but Mark likes to believe that she retains some of her maternal instincts when he is involved. 

“Jae, I promise I’ll be fine,” Mark urges, although he’s not entirely sure who he’s trying to convince. “And if I do drown in my own food, you’ll be the first to speak at my funeral.”

Jaehyun doesn’t look particularly appeased by that invitation. He gives Mark’s shoulder one last squeeze before heading out of the office. 

After that, the night continues like its predecessors, boring and mostly uneventful, bar the violent string of profanity slung at him by a man who doesn’t seem to understand the concept of the touch screen and its incompatibility with gloves. By the end of the conversation, Mark feels like pulling out his hair, so he just suggests fingerless gloves and hangs up, the likelihood of a bad review left as something for Future Mark to worry about (which he most definitely will). 

The night starts to go downhill when Mark’s computer begins making loud whirring noises, like the revving of a car engine. That concerns him because, one, his PC is not a car, and two, it has never made any sort of worrying sound before. He ignores it for a while, clicking through documents and answering emails he’s procrastinated responding to for too long. 

Things really take a turn for the worst when the screen suddenly goes black. No image, no sound; just deep, dark nothingness. Frantically clicking his mouse around the darkened screen, Mark begins to panic, thinking he’s so drastically technologically inept he managed to send his computer into some sort of emotional overdrive. At least the noise has stopped, he thinks. 

It takes almost no hesitation on Mark’s part before he decides to bite the bullet and make the long journey down to IT. He elects to ignore the spike of excitement piercing his gut as he skips down corridors until he’s standing restlessly in the elevator. Customer complaints lives on the twentieth floor, whilst IT is down on the second, with a lengthy elevator ride in between. Despite being an apparent up-and-coming tech company, the tech within the company itself still needs some help. 

Unlike the last time Mark found himself standing in front of the IT office, the door is open when he arrives, ajar just enough for a sliver of its inner workings to be revealed. The overhead lights are off, but a small, yellow lamp casts a warm glow across the empty office, like the flame of a static candle. Mark pushes the door open a little further, revealing the rest of the office, and with it Yuta, frowning at one of his two screens with an unfairly attractive pout pulling at his lips. Frozen in the doorway, Mark stares, entranced. 

It takes a few delayed seconds for Yuta to notice Mark’s mesmerised figure, eerily still where he stands on the office’s threshold. 

“Mark?” Yuta sounds surprised, but not unpleasantly. It makes Mark feel less like he’s intruding. Doesn’t make him feel any less nervous, unfortunately. 

“Yuta. Hi,” Mark greets, his voice coming out pitchy and cracked like a teenage boy. He feels his face grow hot with embarrassment, but Yuta only smiles softly, as though he’s endeared by Mark rather than entertained. It’s a small gesture, but Mark notices it nonetheless. 

“What’re you doing here so late?” Yuta asks, and Mark takes that as his cue to come in. The clack of his shoes against the linoleum floor seems so loud in the relative silence of the office, and for a moment, Mark wonders if he and Yuta are the only people left in the building. Sometimes, when his thoughts get a little lost, it almost feels like Yuta is the only other person in the world. 

“Working,” Mark sighs, digging his hands into his pockets. He tries not to visibly react when his fingers brush against a stray crumb. Yuck. “You?”

“Working,” Yuta nods. He inches his chair away from the desk and stretches out his legs. Mark steels himself, clenching his fists until his nails scratch the palms of his hands.

“Speaking of work,” Yuta adds, “is there anything I can help you with?” 

And back to business it is. 

“Uh, yeah. My PC started making weird noises,” Mark begins, the force of Yuta’s gaze making it difficult to focus on forming coherent sentences. “Like, really aggressive screeching, and then it switched itself off. Is that normal?”

Yuta looks a little amused. “Aggressive screeching?” he repeats, and Mark suddenly feels embarrassed. 

“Yeah.”

“It’s probably just a matter of the fan needing cleaned,” Yuta explains, pushing himself out of his chair. He leans across his desk and clicks the mouse around before glancing in Mark’s direction once more. “I’ll come up and have a look if that’s okay with you?”

“Sure,” Mark nods. Truthfully, until now, he had no idea a fan resided inside his computer, but Mark supposes that it makes sense. If Yuta says so, then it’s probably true.

The wait for the elevator is brief considering he and Yuta are some of the only people left in the building, but it seems almost eternal because neither of them are saying a word. Mark spends most of that time trying to come up with some sort of conversation starter that doesn't sound weird or like a creepy way of coming on to Yuta. He ends up stewing in silence for most of the elevator ride too, and he can’t decide if he feels better or worse when he’s reminded of the fact that Yuta hasn’t said much either. Or anything, really. Maybe he’s tired. Maybe he thinks Mark is really annoying and would rather be anywhere else. 

They make it all the way to Mark’s cubicle without exchanging a single word, yet the silence feels more serene than awkward. The gentle sway of waves against a shore, rather than the pause following a poorly received joke. 

Mark merely watches, useless and unhelpful, as Yuta presses the palm of his hand to the computer. He almost laughs out loud, thinking that it looks a little like Yuta is communicating telepathically with the machine. He doesn’t though, the silence between them still filled with an uncertainty Mark can’t figure out how to get rid of. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s just overheating,” Yuta concludes, pulling his hand away and swiping off any dust on the leg of his trousers. “The fan’s probably caked with dust, but as long as that gets cleaned you’ll be good for a while.”

Mark nods, like he knows what Yuta’s talking about. Yuta sees right through him.

“How much of your shift have you got left?” he asks, glancing at the clock hanging on the opposite wall. It reads seven thirty. Mark dies a little inside.

“About an hour and a half,” he answers, a tad forlorn because he doesn’t think he can handle another angry phone call at this time of night. 

“Alright,” Yuta nods, and a strand of his hair falls loose, dangling across the skin of his forehead. Mark has to fight the temptation to reach out and brush it away. “I’ll go and get the things I need, and then I’ll be back.”

“You’ll do it for me?” Mark is unable to disguise his disbelief.

Yuta looks at him strangely. “It’s my job.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mark says with a strangled laugh. His face grows several degrees hotter, and Yuta either doesn’t notice or chooses not to say anything, shooting Mark a polite smile as he leaves the office. 

Mark uses the few minutes he has alone to reconvene with himself and attempt to come up with some sort of strategy to get Yuta to like him. Currently, Yuta tolerates Mark like one would tolerate an excitable puppy, which would be fine, except Mark is not a puppy and he would rather Yuta enjoyed Mark’s company than simply put up with it. 

He makes a brief trip to the bathroom where he splashes water on his face, but with Mark being such a chronic clutz, half of it also ends up on his shirt. Miserable and a little soggy, Mark trundles back to his cubicle, only to find Yuta already waiting for him. 

“Did you get into a water fight while I was gone?” he jokes, giving Mark’s damp shirt an amused glance. The edges of his lips are curled upwards into a pretty smile, perhaps the prettiest Mark has ever seen. 

“No, we just have really good water pressure up here,” Mark lies, tugging at his damp collar. 

Yuta doesn’t look convinced, but he smiles anyway and plays along. “Right? I hate it when that happens.”

This smile is wider and brighter than the last one, and Mark thinks he might faint, the sight making him lightheaded. If only he knew how to flirt. He and Yuta would be at least three dates in by now if he did. 

When Mark gets to his desk, he’s surprised to find two cups of coffee sitting beside the little potted plant Donghyuck gave him for Christmas. 

“I saw you eyeing the coffee machine in my office,” Yuta explains, his grin on the verge of becoming teasing - not that Mark would mind. 

“Oh, thanks!” Mark gushes, a little too enthusiastically for a single mug of coffee. 

Yuta isn’t deterred by Mark’s enthusiasm, though, picking up his own mug and taking a sip. He lets out a satisfied sigh, licking the liquid from his lips, and Mark kind of wishes he could kiss him.

Bringing his own mug to his mouth, Mark takes a distracted sip and makes a note of the tools scattered beside the monitor. He at least knows what a screwdriver looks like, so he doesn’t feel completely stupid, but he’s sure that feeling will return the moment Yuta starts to do anything even remotely related to his job. 

“Do you want me to help with any of that?” Mark asks, gesturing to his desk. 

Yuta shakes his head. “It’s fine. Honestly. It won’t take as long if I just do it myself.”

“Makes sense.”

And so, Yuta sets down his mug and drops to the floor. His head disappears under the desk, and Mark thinks he hears him unplugging a few things. When Yuta reappears again, a few more strands of hair have fallen loose and his cheeks are flushed a little pink. Colour Mark endeared. 

“Actually, do you mind finding somewhere to put this?” Yuta asks, patting the monitor. “Just until I’m done.”

It only faintly registers in the back of Mark’s mind that he should be embarrassed by the speed at which he complies to Yuta’s request, taking the screen and dashing into Jaehyun’s cubicle with renewed energy. Must be the coffee. 

“Why are you working so late? Overtime?”

Yuta’s tone is conversational, but it sets Mark’s heart racing all the same. He’s surprised by the question, assuming that they would spend the next however many minutes in silence. Again. 

“Yeah, my boss is kind of a massive dick,” he admits honestly, then immediately regrets it, glancing around in case his boss jumps out from the nearest corner to fire Mark and throw him out on the streets.

Yuta snorts quietly, but doesn’t turn away from where he’s unscrewing something. Mark has no idea what. 

“Tell me about it,” Yuta says knowingly. “When I first started here my boss would threaten to deduct my wages _daily_. I don't even think that’s legal, but he didn’t care. It got him fired in the end, though. Someone else from my department complained to HR, an investigation started and then one week later he was gone. I have no idea what they found, and I’ve always been too scared to ask.”

“I wonder if that would work on my boss,” Mark mutters, but Yuta hears him. 

“It could,” he shrugs, his agreement unexpected. “I mean, he’s got you working at this time on a Friday night. Alone. Are you getting paid, at least?”

For once, the thought of extra money going into Mark’s bank account does not bring him joy. 

“Yeah, but not very much.” 

Yuta turns away from the computer and fixes Mark with a serious stare. 

“Why do it then? Why not say no?”

They’re good questions, questions Mark has asked himself on many an occasion, but the answer is always the same. 

“I need the money,” he shrugs. “Don’t we all?”

“Sure, but not at the cost of our personal lives,” Yuta says, abandoning his task for a moment to catch Mark’s gaze. “Aren’t there about a billion other things you would rather be doing right now?”

That was somewhat of a loaded question, even Mark could tell. What he couldn’t figure out was what Yuta meant by it - what did he want Mark to say? Of course, there were multiple hobbies Mark could be partaking in at this time, friends he could be spending time with, tv shows he could catch up on. Just about every option that runs through his mind is favourable to a night spent at work, but Mark is so used to this by now he doesn’t even feel like he’s missing out on anything. You can’t miss what you never had in the first place. 

“Well, what about you?” he counters, turning the question back on Yuta to distract himself. “I can’t imagine this is what you want to be doing on a Friday night.”

“Touché, Mark Lee,” is Yuta’s response, just as evasive as Mark’s own. “Touché.”

Mark blinks. The sound of his name falling from Yuta’s lips sounds… 

Well, it sounds familiar, like he’s heard it before. Like the lyrics of a song he hasn’t listened to since he was a child, or the scent of a perfume bringing him back to a memory he can only remember brief snapshots of. It sounds familiar, and Mark doesn't know what to do with that piece of information.

“Writing,” he suddenly blurts out, and Yuta looks up at him, visibly confused. 

Cheeks burning red, Mark clears his throat. “Writing - that’s what I’d rather be doing. Right now. Later. Tomorrow. Ten years from now.”

Yuta’s face softens, the harsh lines melting like snow under the hot rays of a winter sun.

“That’s cool,” he compliments, a sincere gleam in his round eyes. Mark’s flush deepens. “I wish I could write, but every time I try, the words come out all wooden and stilted. I think anyone would have a hard time reading it.”

“It’s all about inspiration,” Mark confesses. “If I don’t have any, then I can’t write.”

“Art’s kind of like that.”

“You draw?”

“I used to. Painting, too, but I don’t really have the time anymore.” Yuta pauses, letting out a humourless laugh. “I don’t think I can actually remember the last time I picked up a paint brush, now that I think about it.”

“Adulthood’s draining, isn’t it?” Mark sighs. 

This time, Yuta doesn’t answer with much more than a tilt of his head as he sprays something on the dismantled parts of the computer. Mark is saved from having to come up with something else to say when the phone rings. Yuta moves a little to the left, giving Mark just enough room to lean in and pick it up. 

He shouldn't be surprised when he hears the voice of a complaining customer - it is his job, after all - but Mark would be lying if he said he wasn’t expecting someone else. 

It’s a woman, sounding a little younger than Mark’s usual callers, filing a complaint about broken earphones. Mark panics, realising that he doesn’t have his computer to type up the complaint, but then a face appears in front of his own, effectively cutting off every single one of Mark’s senses. 

He’s never seen Yuta from this close before. His eyes look so much bigger, so much brighter from this angle. His lower lip is caught between his teeth, the pink skin turning red from the pressure, and Mark can’t stop staring. Even under the shitty fluorescent lights, Yuta’s hair shines, a rosy glow haloing his head like he’s some sort of angel, and Mark can’t breathe. His tongue feels like it’s turning to sandpaper in his mouth as he watches Yuta’s fingers curl around a marker, and Mark can’t do anything to stop it. 

It takes several seconds too long for him to realise what it is that Yuta’s doing; he’s taking notes for Mark’s report. The reason his face is so close is because he’s listening in to the call, scribbling across a notepad as he takes down the details of the complaint. Just as well, because Mark’s fairly certain he hasn’t heard a thing the customer has said in the last minute and a half, far too distracted by Yuta’s proximity and the faint scent of something fresh and deep; floral yet musky. 

The squeaky scratching of pen against paper fills Mark’s ears until it’s all he can hear, the sound of the customer’s voice fading to a distant buzz. He’s still answering her questions and making little sympathetic hums, but that’s more down to years of practice than anything else. There aren’t enough fingers on his hands for Mark to count the number of calls he’s answered during which a bathroom break would’ve been possible without the customer even noticing.

“... it’s all just so annoying, you know!” the woman groans, her voice drowning out the deafening hum, jolting him back to reality. In answer to her question, Mark doesn’t know, but that’s nothing new. 

“I sincerely apologise for any inconvenience we’ve caused,” he drones, the script running on a teleprompter inside his brain. “Let me go ahead and resend you another set of headphones, free of charge.”

Yuta’s scribbling intensifies as Mark runs off the details, confirms the shipping address, and then the woman is thanking him and hanging up. Mark pulls the phone away from his ear and stares at it wordlessly. 

“Is something wrong?” Yuta asks. He’s moved away since the call ended, and Mark sort of misses the warmth of their bodies being so close. God, Donghyuck’s right. He’s incredibly uptight and touch starved. 

“Um, not exactly.” Mark can’t meet Yuta’s eyes as he drops the receiver. “It’s just that… they don’t usually say thank you.”

“Yeah, they’re real assholes most of the time,” Yuta snorts, like he knows the feeling. 

Maybe he does, Mark realises. The shitty boss, the speed at which he took down the details- 

“You’ve worked customer complaints before?”

“Oh, yeah,” Yuta sighs, a sound telling of his exhaustion. “It’s been three years since I last picked up one of those phones.”

“What made you quit?” 

If Yuta had a good enough reason to leave, then maybe Mark can plagiarise it, use it for his own escape from hell. 

“The customers,” Yuta eventually says. “IT doesn't have those.”

Damn. Mark doesn’t think he could justify quitting because of his callers. If he could, he’d have handed in his letter of resignation quite some time ago. There’s a metallic grinding sound as Yuta begins reconstructing the computer, twisting the screwdriver with practiced ease. Mark stares at his hands longingly, unable to stop himself from imagining what it would be like to feel the soft skin of Yuta’s palm against his own. It’s a simple fantasy, but it leaves Mark just as embarrassed as any other. 

“Am I not a bit like a customer?” he wonders aloud, the thought coming to him as Yuta finishes up. “Chasing you up all the time because I don’t know how to work a computer?”

Yuta immediately shakes his head. “Not at all. You’re not nearly as annoying.”

It’s a joke, Mark knows this, but it doesn’t stop his brain from taking Yuta’s comment as a compliment. 

“Good to know,” he laughs. “I’ll need to brush up on my inner Karen for the next time.”

“God no,” Yuta gasps, mildly horrified. “I don’t think I could take you asking me to speak with my manager because, unfortunately, I _am_ the manager.”

Now it’s Mark’s turn to be horrified. 

“Wait, _you’re_ the manager?” he squeaks. “I asked the manager of the IT department to clean my computer?”

“Technically, I offered,” Yuta points out. “But yes.”

“Oh, I am so sorry,” Mark apologises, scrubbing a hand across his face in frustration. “This is really embarrassing.”

Yuta laughs again. It shoots through Mark’s heart like a bullet, which he currently wishes was real because then maybe he would drop dead. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Yuta tries in an attempt to comfort Mark. It only half works. “I wouldn’t have helped you if I didn’t want to. You know that, right?”

Mark did not know that, but he does now. 

“Thanks, Yuta,” he half-mumbles, unable to look the other man in the eye as he does. “Like, seriously. Thank you.”

The following silence stretches like a rubber band, taught and elastic and painfully slow. Mark is preparing himself for a speedy get away when Yuta finally speaks, asking him perhaps the strangest question of the night.

“Just how seriously?”

📞

  
  


Mark didn’t exactly have an itinerary ready for the hours following the end of his shift, but nowhere, not even in his wildest dreams, could he have planned this. 

Directly across the table from him sits Yuta, the low lighting of the café casting shadows across the planes of his face in dangerous silhouettes that leave Mark aching to touch him. They’re tucked away in the corner of a nearby coffee shop, the kind that stays open into the early hours of the morning for tired office workers and caffeine-dependant students. Along with the two of them, there’s only one other customer: a girl - probably a high schooler by the looks of her uniform - scribbling furiously away at the pages of her notebook. Her table is covered in empty mugs and a plate with a half-eaten slice of cake sits beside her. Mark doesn’t envy the poor girl, and nor does Yuta, evident in the pitying smile he sends her way when she sits up for a large forkful of cake. 

“I remember when that was me,” he laments, followed swiftly by a bite of his tomato and mozzarella panini. It was a little pricey, but Mark supposes that this is meant to be a thank you gift for all of Yuta’s unnecessary workload. In that case, he can afford to splash a little cash. 

“Yeah, school didn’t take it easy on any of us,” Mark agrees, peering down at his own food with a thinly veiled grimace. Once he’d paid for Yuta’s food, his daily allowance began to dwindle so he’d settled for the cheapest thing on the menu - scrambled eggs. No toast. No waffles. No bacon. Just eggs. 

Suddenly, a hand enters vision, and along with it, half of a tomato and mozzarella panini. Mark looks up at Yuta, who offers him an encouraging smile. 

“I’m actually kind of full,” he lies, placing the sandwich on Mark’s plate. He leans back in his seat with an exaggerated groan. “You should probably eat the rest. I don’t want to look like I’m wasteful.”

Mark stares at Yuta for a stilted moment, and Yuta stares right back. Maybe he’s mistaken or deluded, but Mark thinks he feels something crackle between them, a tangible tension that sparks on Mark’s tongue and tingles down his spine. It feels just as wrong as it does right, and Mark finds himself unable to do much as Yuta’s eyes stay caught with his own, some sort of invisible magnetism keeping either of them from breaking. 

“I suppose I can manage half a panini to save your reputation,” Mark jokes, his mouth quirking into a faint smile. Yuta’s eyes catch the movement, dropping from Mark’s own to the lower half of his face. The action leaves Mark sort of speechless, so he takes the opportunity to eat the proffered panini. The cheese has gone cold, turning to the texture of rubber in Mark’s mouth, and the tomatoes are kind of mushy, but it’s certainly not the worst thing he’s ever eaten. 

“My knight in shining armour,” Yuta sighs, fluttering his eyelashes theatrically. Mark chokes on his sandwich. 

Still, the embarrassment of having Yuta witness Mark turning red in the face from coughing doesn’t seem to be much worse than everything else he’s already done, and they finish their meal without another hiccup. Conversation is comfortable with Yuta, but so is the silence in between; the moments where neither of them have much to say don’t feel forced or awkward, and Mark doesn’t feel like he has to say anything at all. By the time they’re ready to leave, the high school girl is gone, replaced by a couple holding hands over the table. Mark gives their conjoined hands a longing glance, but doesn’t allow himself to dwell on the idea for more than a second. Any longer, and he’d be reaching for Yuta’s hand where it hangs open and free at his side. 

The night air is cool against the warmth of Mark’s skin, the stark contrast making him shudder. 

“You cold?” Yuta asks, because of course he noticed. 

“A little,” Mark admits, crossing his arms over his chest in an attempt to retain some body heat as they walk towards the nearest subway station. 

“Is it a long walk from the station to your place?”

Mark isn’t sure why his answer prompted such a question, but he answers anyway. 

“About fifteen minutes or so. Why?”

Yuta stops walking, so Mark does too. He seems hesitant, his teeth coming out to chew the flesh of his lower lip. Mark finds himself mesmerised by it, unable to draw his eyes away. 

“I could drive you,” Yuta finally suggests. “If you want.”

Pretending to consider his answer would be stupid. Unlike Yuta, Mark’s answer is instant.

“Yeah, I do want.”

And somehow, out of all the answers Mark could have chosen, this is the one that leaves Yuta speechless. His eyes widen and his mouth parts as he sucks in a breath, audible above the noise of the city because they’ve both forgotten about its existence. The people. The traffic. The neon lights and tyres splashing through puddles. The distant yelling of people out clubbing, tipsy from the alcohol pumping through their veins. Mark has forgotten about it all. The only thing he can see is Yuta’s face, golden beneath the gleam of the streetlights. All he can hear is the softness of Yuta’s breathing, leaving his mouth in gentle puffs. A car zooms down the street, its wheels screeching against the rain slicked road, and something between them cracks.

“Come on, I’ll get you home,” Yuta says. He doesn’t wait for Mark to say anything, simply turning on his heel and walking down the street. Mark follows. 

Yuta leads him back to the NCT building, but instead of going through the lobby, they go down the side of the building until they reach a set of stairs leading up to the car park. The soles of their shiny loafers echo loudly against the concrete, the sound bouncing off the walls until it’s the only thing Mark can hear. His head spins with a million different thoughts, but one recurs often enough for Mark to notice. He wants Yuta. He wants Yuta more than he’s wanted anything in a long time. That much, Mark is sure of. 

The car Yuta takes him to is a nondescript, sleek, black model - exactly what Mark expected. The interior is much the same, with its black leather seats and typical fresh pine smell. Everything about the car is unremarkable, and for some odd reason, Mark feels comforted by that. He doesn’t feel pressured to act like he knows anything about cars just to impress Yuta, doesn’t feel like he needs to project some sort of life he doesn’t live. With Yuta, everything is comfortable in the most unfamiliar of ways, and Mark has never felt anything else quite like it. Then again, he doesn’t think there’s anyone else quite like Yuta. 

“Just type your address into the GPS and _hopefully_ I can get you back home in a reasonable time and in one piece,” Yuta instructs, his voice sounding clearer and more compact in the limited space of the car. 

“That’s reassuring,” Mark snorts, typing his street name onto the screen with clumsy thumbs. He makes a few typos before Yuta can pull out of his space and onto the road, but it’s worth it if it means they get to spend a little longer in each other’s company. 

The drive to Mark’s apartment is punctuated with the low hum of the radio and the occasional comment about traffic, the number of potholes littering the road or the poetic irony of a tech company filled to the brim with technological issues. 

When Yuta pulls up in front of Mark’s building, they’re both quiet. It’s been quite the whirlwind of a night, the memories of which would surely remain hazy and dreamlike in Mark’s mind. None of it seems quite real, or even believable to him. Not long ago, Mark didn’t even know Yuta existed, and now, here he is, already half in love with the man. He thinks he might understand why people often think of writers as hopeless romantics.

Mark is the first to break the silence. “Thanks for the lift.” 

“No problem,” Yuta says after a beat. Unlike the streets nearer the office, this one is void of any life, like a ghost town. It’s what Mark loves about his neighbourhood, and probably the reason his neighbours hate him and Donghyuck so much, with their loud music and… well, just their loud music, but that’s been enough to warrant a few strongly worded letters through the door. 

“Well, I better get going then,” Mark sighs, unbuckling his seatbelt with a resounding click. When Yuta killed the engine, the radio switched off, and now every sound seems magnified by the lack of background noise. It sets Mark’s nerves on edge, like this is the steady calm before a raging storm. 

He checks the street for any oncoming cars, just to be on the safe side, but as expected the road is empty. The door opens with another click, this one more hollow, and Mark manages to step out of the car without making an utter fool of himself. He leans back down to face Yuta, who watches Mark with an odd look on his face, one that Mark can’t place. 

“Goodnight.” It comes out as something only a little louder than a whisper, but the volume seems appropriate for the moment. Yuta smiles for the first time in what feels like an age. 

“Goodnight, Mark Lee,” he responds, his voice as soft as a wave crashing against the shore. 

Mark nods in acknowledgement before slowly shutting the door. It locks firmly into place, and then he doesn’t have an excuse to stick around any longer so he begins to make his way towards the main door to his building. His keys jingle loudly as he extracts them from the front pocket of his bag; a lion’s roar in the quiet of a forest. He stares at the door, and the keyhole stares back, the shape of it like a crying eye. A second passes. And then another. Another. Five seconds pass before Mark’s resolution crumbles and he looks over his shoulder. 

Yuta’s car is still there. The engine hasn’t started back up again. The radio remains off. Silence. Even with the distance between them, Mark can tell that Yuta’s watching him. Gulping audibly, Mark raises a hand and waves. 

The headlights switch on, the car shudders with a rumble, and moments later, Yuta is gone. 

📞

  
  


When Monday rolls around, Mark has come to a realisation. Friday night was a date, and Yuta had been waiting for Mark to kiss him. 

It makes sense now, retrospectively. As they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty, but Mark wishes that his regular vision was too, because he feels incredibly stupid. How did he not notice? How could he possibly be so oblivious? How? 

He spends the entirety of Monday, as well as Tuesday, agonising over the whole ordeal. Jaehyun seems to notice Mark’s strange mood, but for once he doesn’t comment on it, simply electing to bring Mark styrofoam cups of coffee when he looks like he needs it most. 

On top of his personal crisis, the customer complaints department is informed that cuts will have to be made if the company wants to stay afloat, meaning jobs will be lost. Mark can’t tell if he’s panicked or relieved by this piece of news, but everyone else looks to be veering towards the former, with all of his coworkers suddenly finding a new diligence with which they act out their job. This means there are far less opportunities to dawdle, and Mark finds himself drowning in reports and phone calls and then even more reports once the phones stop ringing. He barely has the time to breathe, never mind think about Yuta.

As they say, time is a cruel mistress; the minutes, hours, _days_ passing with such speed that Mark doesn’t even realise it’s Friday again until he arrives at work. Unusually, Jaehyun has taken the day off due to a heavy head cold he caught from Johnny, leaving Mark to suffer on his lonesome for the entire day until it hits five o’clock, and then he truly is on his lonesome because everyone else has clocked out. Doyoung offered to stay and help, but nothing about his haggard appearance had been particularly convincing, so Mark had forced him to go home if only to get an extra hour or so of clearly much needed sleep. Hypocritical, perhaps, but he ticks it off as his good deed for the day.

Despite the absolute chaos of the past week, hardly anyone calls. It’s somewhat of a relief, but it also leaves Mark wondering why he’s even here if he no one has any complaints. The phone rings at one point a little after six, but it turns out to be a little kid who got hold of their parents’ phone and started punching in random numbers. After that, there isn’t much to do other than play game upon game of Solitaire and stare at the clock as its hands inch closer and closer to Mark’s freedom. 

He’s just on the verge of considering leaving early when the phone rings again. 

“Hi, this is Mark from-”

“Do we have to do this every week?” a familiar voice cuts in. “I’m gonna start hearing your whole spiel in my sleep at this point.”

“I’m not psychic,” Mark mentions. He can’t help but smile, especially after the spectacularly shitty week he’s had. “How am I supposed to know who’s calling?”

“I told you I’d phone on Friday,” the stranger says, although Mark isn’t quite sure he can call this man a stranger anymore. 

“But you didn’t,” he accuses. It’s a fact he’s only noticed now, too busy last week with _other things._

“Ah, but I didn't specify _which_ Friday,” the guy points out in a lengthy _aha_. “You didn’t wait for me to call last week, did you?”

“No, of course not!” Mark scoffs, honestly appalled that this mysterious stranger believes he’s incapable of having a social life. He already hears enough of that from Donghyuck. “I had better, more important things to do.”

“And here I was worried that you were sitting around, staring longingly at the phone while you waited for my call,” the stranger bemoans. “Oh, how you wound me, Mark.”

Mark laughs at that, the sound flowing freely. The light above his desk flickers like it always does, but Mark still glares at it, as if that’ll have any effect in solving the problem.

“Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you call?” he asks once his laughter dies down. Thinking back on it, he does briefly remember taking note of the suspiciously silent phone. 

“Maybe I had better, more important things to do,” the guy taunts, throwing Mark’s words back at him like they’re playing a verbal game of tennis. 

“I doubt it,” Mark snickers, picking distractedly at a hangnail. “You spend your Friday evenings calling customer complaints, even though you're neither a customer nor filing a complaint.”

“Do I have to be either?”

“Yes,” Mark deadpans. “If not, isn’t this just a waste of both our time?”

There’s another pause as the stranger considers Mark’s question. 

“No, I don’t see it that way,” he says, and it’s the most candid Mark has ever heard him.

“How do you see it then?” Mark queries, genuinely curious. He doesn’t know why this guy keeps calling back. He thinks he’d like to. “Please, enlighten me.”

“I see it as two people getting to know one another,” the stranger decides, his voice firm. 

“You’re making it sound as if this is some sort of blind date,” Mark snorts, amusement creeping back into his words, infiltrating the vowels with something that teases and taunts. 

“Isn’t it?” is the response he gets. It’s another display of blatant honesty, and Mark doesn’t know how to deal with it. 

“I don’t even know your name,” he protests, but behind it all lies genuine curiosity and interest. He wants to know who this guy is, for his peace of mind if not anything else.

The stranger starts to speak again, but his voice is nothing more than a jumbled, electronic, indecipherable mess. Syllables come through in halves and quarters, tiny fractions of sound, but not enough for Mark to piece together the whole thing. 

“I can’t- I can’t hear you,” he says, spurred on by urgency. 

That stupid light above his cubicle flashes like a warning sign, winking at Mark like it’s making fun of him, and then the office is plunged into darkness. The garbled noise hissing into his ear stops too, leaving him in complete and utter silence. Mark feels like he’s been dropped into a sensory deprivation tank, unable to see or hear anything but faint shadows and the rapid _whoosh_ of his own breathing. He places down the receiver with a click and scrambles to find his mobile, stuffed somewhere in the depths of his jacket pocket. His hand bumps against the plastic, cool to the touch, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

The relief doesn't last long, because then Mark’s dropping his phone on the floor, a muffled thud against the carpet, and now he’s back where he started because he still can’t see a thing, and on top of that, he is now phoneless. Mark thinks about leaving the office to go in search of help, but he can already see through the little window on the office door that the corridor is just as pitch black. 

With a frustrated groan, Mark drops to the ground, searching blindly for his phone. It can’t have gone far, but there’s no way to tell with how dark it is. The carpet scratches the skin of his palms, a horrible blue polyester that’s probably never had a deep clean since it was first put down, and he bangs his head on the underside of his desk in the process. No phone. He can’t find it anywhere. He would just get up and leave if he could, and come back to find it on Monday instead, but his phone case holds his ticket home. Literally. The stupid little plastic card rests in a slot on the back of his phone, along with his debit card and his work ID. Without it his only option is to walk, which would be a lengthy and tiring ordeal. 

Mark is seriously beginning to consider setting up camp in the office when he hears the clack of someone’s footsteps echoing out in the corridor. Only a second or two later, the door to the office opens with a quiet squeak, and then a voice is calling out into the darkness:

“Mark? Are you in here?”

It’s Yuta. A breath of relief leaves Mark in a punched whoosh. They haven’t seen each other in a week, haven’t spoken to one another in that same amount of time, yet the immediate comfort that Yuta’s presence brings hasn’t diminished one bit. 

“Yeah, I’m over here,” he calls, patting his hands around to make sure he doesn’t accidentally stand on his phone and crack it. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere within his immediate vicinity, so he begins to push himself off of the ground. 

He’s not even halfway upright when Yuta appears, a hazy shadow shrouded in darkness. 

“Mark, are you sitting on the floor?” He doesn’t sound all that surprised. 

“I dropped my phone,” Mark explains, and Yuta huffs a laugh. 

“Here, let me help you,” he offers, and then a blinding light shines across the ground. The torch on Yuta’s phone reveals strips of carpet, sadly void of Mark’s own, swivelling across the office floor like the spinning glow of a lighthouse. 

For the first time in a week, Mark can see Yuta’s face, the torchlight reflecting dimly against his features and it’s like seeing him through a misty fog. There’s no definition in the shadows, just a haze that Mark’s vision can’t cut through.

“Are you okay?” Yuta asks, voice as soft as the curve of his nose. 

“Well, I’d be a lot better if I had my phone,” Mark quips, but Yuta doesn’t laugh. Even in the dark, Mark can tell he wants a serious answer. 

“I’m okay,” he confesses, honest and true. There’s a sharp sigh from Yuta and his shoulders lose all of their tension, slumping with what could only be relief. 

Mark doesn’t know what possesses him to do it - nor will he ever - but he reaches out for Yuta until the skin of their hands touches, a breath of a caress; a flutter of a butterfly’s wings. They remain like that for an indecipherable length of time, touching but not really _touching,_ and it feels like all the oxygen is slowly being stolen from Mark’s lungs, leaving him gasping for air. 

Yuta is the one to seal the deal. The movement of his fingers twisting and twining like the roots of a tree could never be subtle, not when Mark is so attuned to every movement between them, but Yuta tries nonetheless. The process is a slow one, but before long, Yuta has Mark’s hand clutched in his own, their palms kissing like Mark wants their lips to. 

Kissing. It’s not a foreign concept to Mark, but it’s certainly a daunting one. He knows he wants to kiss Yuta - that much is obvious - but he isn’t sure he wants to _now_. This moment feels too pure, too precious, and Mark wants to remember it as such.

“We should probably find your phone,” Yuta whispers. He doesn’t move. 

“Probably,” Mark whispers back. He doesn’t let go of Yuta’s hand. 

“Mark?”

“Hm?”

“Do you want a ride home?”

A pause.

“Yes, I do want.”

📞

The elevator ride is much like the last they shared together, in that neither of them dares to speak. Before, it was out of unfamiliarity, but now it’s something else altogether. Now, they know what it feels like to have their skin pressed together, soft and warm and tender. Something itches within Mark, incessant and unreachable, leaving him fidgety and restless as he stands beside Yuta in the silence of the elevator. He wonders if Yuta can feel it too, an itch he can’t quite scratch. He wonders if that’s why neither of them have been able to hold eye contact for longer than a millisecond, before an ache sets in, lodging itself between Mark’s ribs as heavy as a stone. 

Yuta’s car is just like Mark remembers, although it would be far stranger had it changed. The leather of the seat feels cool, a sensation palpable even through the layers of his clothes. It’s a pleasant respite from the heat that crawls across the surface of his skin, and he refrains from sighing when his burning palms touch the cool material. Yuta chooses not to switch the radio on, and Mark chooses not to comment on the fact that the GPS is still programmed with his address. 

Down busy roads they go, snaking through traffic at a pace that could rival a snail. Unlike last time, neither of them feel the need to fill the silence with useless words and meaningless half-truths. Yuta’s knuckles are white as he grips the steering wheel with denting force. For several minutes, Mark lets himself look.

The space directly in front of Mark’s building is taken, so Yuta pulls in a few houses down. The engine cutting off is a little startling, Mark having gotten used to its constant hum, but he recovers soon enough when he senses Yuta turning to face him.

“Thanks for all your help tonight,” Mark says, and it feels like last Friday all over again. He hopes Yuta isn’t growing sick of hearing the same things from Mark each time they talk. 

“Sorry we didn’t find your phone,” Yuta apologises. They both know it’s insincere. They both know exactly where Mark’s phone is. They both pretended not to notice. 

“It’s fine, I’ll just go in early on Monday.” 

“Would you like me to come with you? I could always drive us in,” Yuta suggests. His hand rests on the centre console, an unspoken invitation. Mark takes it, both the invitation and Yuta’s hand. 

“I’d like that a lot,” Mark replies, a ghost of a whisper. Yuta’s fingers grow tight around his, the knuckles glowing white again. Mark wants to kiss them; wants to kiss _him_.

With only an inconspicuous shudder of nerves, Mark slowly raises their clasped hands from the centre console, lifting them up, up, up, until Yuta’s fingers lie just below his mouth.

“Mark,” Yuta murmurs, but it’s not a warning. It’s a plea. 

The press of his lips against Yuta’s skin is like the brush of a feather, a tender swipe across his knuckles. Yuta’s gasp is loud, so incredibly loud, and it spurs Mark on. Each kiss grows a little firmer, a little more confident, and soon, Mark has kissed every crevice on Yuta’s hand, not an inch spared from the feeling of Mark’s mouth. 

“Mark,” Yuta says again. This time it sounds desperate. 

The press of his lips against Yuta’s is like a wave crashing against a storm wall, a hungry clashing of mouths. Mark is the one to gasp, a sound swallowed by Yuta as their lips slide together. Each kiss grows deeper, sloppier, fuelled with nothing but pure, unadulterated want. No inch of Yuta’s mouth goes unexplored by Mark’s own, and soon the desperation fades to something calmer, something warmer; something Mark wants to hold onto. 

“Goodnight,” Mark hums against Yuta’s lips with one last kiss. 

“Goodnight, Mark Lee,” Yuta kisses back.

It’s only once Mark’s back at home, curled beneath the plush sheets of his bed, that he understands why Yuta’s voice sounds so familiar. _Goodnight, Mark Lee_. That’s what Yuta said to him when he dropped Mark off on Friday, as they kissed in the car tonight, and it’s the same thing Yuta said to him two Fridays ago when he spoke to Mark on the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! again, i apologise for dragging out the story an extra chapter, but i won't keep you waiting too long for the next part. as always please let me know what you think! kudos and comments are always appreciated <3
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/angel1c_angel)//[cc](https://curiouscat.me/angel1c_angel)


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